Overcliff and Undercliff

Down through the woods to Hay­burn Wyke — a favour­ite des­tin­a­tion. The ferns in the wood sur­pris­ingly live and green for Decem­ber — very dif­fer­ent from the dead bracken of the moors. Stream had formed a pool on the beach below the small water­fall — would have been good for bathing in warmer con­di­tions.
So, up to the cliff-top and a brisk walk to Ravenscar. Weather cold but no wind and vis­ib­il­ity out to sea quite low. Dead calm. Along much of the way we looked down on the under­cliff — a huge area of slumped cliff which has been col­on­ised by wood­land and scrub. It looked really invit­ing but revealed few access points from above. There was one pos­sible path but it may well have been made by anim­als rather than humans. Sand­wiches for lunch at the Raven Hall Hotel — beef and horseradish, and an accept­able pint of Theakston’s bit­ter. The chips were poor, though — oven chips I think. And so back along the old rail­way track, stead­ily down­hill from the sum­mit at Ravenscar, a tun­nel now between over­hanging trees which must have grown in the 40 or so years since the line was closed.